Memogain® – a New Alzheimer's Drug Candidate

Galantamine is a natural compound that mainly acts as allosteric sensitizing agent on nicotinic receptors. It has been approved for the treatment of mild-to-moderate forms of Alzheimer's disease since 2000 in many countries around the world. The efficacy of galantamine in AD patients has been demonstrated in multiple large-scale clinical trials and on the amrket. However, adverse events  associated with galantamine (as well as other AD drugs) limit dosing and prevent maximal effectiveness. In case of galantamine,  it is not efficiently transported into the brain; only a small fraction of the dosed galantamine reaches its brain target sites and produces the desired therapeutic benefit, whereas the remaining drug acts on targets localized in the periphery, which gives rise to adverse events.

Galantos Pharma has developed Memogain®, a galantamine pro-drug to improve effectiveness and reduce side effects. Memogain® permeates the blood-brain barrier  more than 10 times more efficiently than galantamine. It is a pharmacologically inactive precursor and converted to active galantamine in the brain. Memogain® is dosed intranasally and did not exhibit toxicities at maximal doses in preclinical tests. It has shown extraordinary fast brain uptake (< 3 min) and brain to blood ratios of up to 20 in multiple animal models.

Memogain® shows significant reduction of disease pregression in a mouse model of AD,  3-5 times higher potency in symptomatic models and no toxicity in animal models.

Memogain® is expected to have a much better ratio of effectiveness to adverse events in man than current therapies and hence is expected to supersede currently used drugs. As compliance of AD patients to drug treatment is currently low, this will be a big step toward effective treatment of the underserved AD patient population.

We expect Memogain® to finally unveil the potential of positive nicotinic receptor modulation by:

• significantly improving cognition
• slowing disease progress
• convenient and very safe therapy

Galantos Pharma develops Memogain® as conveniently dosed intranasal AD treatment with higher effectiveness and excellent tolerability.